Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/14

6 Leo, and as the discourse very frequently turned on the best methods of fortifying Civita Vecchia, opinions respecting the same were many and various, some proposing one design and some another. Among so many plans, Antonio da San Gallo displayed one which was declared by the Pontiff and all those nobles and architects, to be superior to all the rest, both for beauty and strength; it was further commended for the admirable forethought displayed in its many appropriate provisions. This brought Antonio into very great credit with the court, and his abilities were soon afterwards further displayed by the reparation of a very serious oversight which he effected, and the matter was on this wise:—

Raphael of Urbino, for the purpose of obliging certain persons about the court, had permitted several void spaces to be left in the walls beneath the papal apartments and loggie, to the great injury of the whole fabric, seeing that the strength of those parts was not able to support the weight laid upon them, and the edifice already began to show signs of weakness from the insufficiency of power to sustain the superincumbent weight; nay, that part would without doubt have come down, had the abilities of Antonio not been brought to aid: but he, by means of piles and beams, filled in those little chambers or cavities thus left in the building, and, refounding the whole, imparted so much strength to the walls, that they were rendered firmer and more secure than they had ever been.

Meanwhile the Florentine nation, or community of that people abiding in Rome, had commenced the erection of their church, which is situate behind the Banchi in the Via Giulia, after a design prepared by Jacopo Sansovino; but they had brought their fabric too close to the river, and saw themselves compelled to expend a sum of twelve thousand scudi on foundations which had to be laid in the water. This was effected in a very secure and beautiful manner by Antonio da San Gallo, and the method for doing this, which Jacopo Sansovino could not discover, was found by Antonio, who erected several braccia of the edifice on the water, making a model for the same which was of such extraordinary beauty, that the work, had it been completed after that model, would without doubt have been most admirable and even astonishing. It was nevertheless a great mistake to bring the fabric